Neal Brown reveals multiple West Virginia players will miss start of season with injuries

Fall Camp is underway for West Virginia. Unfortunately, for head coach Neal Brown, the Mountaineers are already dealing with several injuries.

Brown met with media members following practice. There, he shared the team’s injury report, which included revealing that several players are going to miss the start of the season with injuries.

“Give you an update,” Neal Brown said. “CJ Donaldson full participation today. He’ll be full go all during Fall Camp. The same Jaheem Joseph, Kole Taylor, both of those guys will be full go. Kyle Altuner will be out with a lower injury. We look for him to come back some point mid-season. He’s not gonna miss the year. That’s a blow to us. We thought he’d be able to compete, and he still may toward the latter part of the season, but he’ll miss all of camp and probably looking toward mid-season.”

Altuner being missing is going to be a blow to West Virginia’s offensive line depth to start the year. Unfortunately, he’s not the only player who’s currently injured. Multiple defensive players are already going to miss the start of the year as well.

“Corey McIntyre‘s out with a lower injury that he got hurt in the spring. He’ll be back later in the year, but he’s going through rehab right now. Oryend Fisher is still limited from an injury during bowl prep last year. Lower injury. Jacolby Spells has really done well. He got injured, I think, practice two or three of spring ball. He was a limited participant today, but I feel good about him progressing and being ready,” Brown said.

“Dom Collins had a little bit of procedure. He’s limited but he’ll be full within a week.”

On top of those injuries, Neal Brown also announced that linebacker Jairo Faverus and defensive lineman Maurice Hamilton are going to need to take medical redshirts.

“Jairo Faverus is going to be a medical redshirt. I hate it for him. Great guy. He was a heavy special teams contributor, but just had several injuries that set him back, and the other one that’s taking a medical redshirt is Hamilton with some lower leg and some back issues. So, those two guys are not on our active roster.”

Unfortunately, when later asked to clarify the severity of those injuries, Neal Brown was concerned they could be career-ending injuries.

“I think career. Both good kids. Jairo’s been a good leader and really developed here into a good special teams player so I hate it for him.”

Later, Neal Brown also shared a more positive update on Asani Redwood. A defensive lineman, he appears to be on track to be a full participant again soon for the Mountaineers.

“So, Asani was a limited participant, and hopefully within the next 10 days or so he’ll move into a full participant, but really hopeful and feel good about his progression.”

Later, Neal Brown was also asked to clarify if Jacolby Spells would be ready for the opener. The hope is that he will be. However, Brown also used it as an opportunity to advocate for injury reports.

“Hopeful. I would say that is hopeful,” Brown said.

“I’ll say this too, man. All this injury stuff, I really think as a league we need to look at injury reports and just having a reporting mechanism. We try to protect the kid, which is the right thing to do, but at the same time with all the changes and gambling and everything, I don’t know who’s listening to this but anyway.”

Injury reports have become a topic of some debate in college football. For now, it’s still up to coaches on how much they publicly choose to share relating to injuries.